t on the Yalbury Road, and shrank from a repetition of his
anger:--

"I will never marry another man whilst you wish me to be your wife,
whatever comes--but to say more--you have taken me so by surprise--"

"But let it stand in these simple words--that in six years' time you
will be my wife? Unexpected accidents we'll not mention, because
those, of course, must be given way to. Now, this time I know you
will keep your word."

"That's why I hesitate to give it."

"But do give it! Remember the past, and be kind."

She breathed; and then said mournfully: "Oh what shall I do? I don't
love you, and I much fear that I never shall love you as much as a
woman ought to love a husband. If you, sir, know that, and I can
yet give you happiness by a mere promise to marry at the end of six
years, if my husband should not come back, it is a great honour to
me. And if you value such an act of friendship from a woman who
doesn't esteem herself as she did, and has little love left, why
I--I will--"

"Promise!"

"--Consider, if I cannot promise soon."

"But soon is perhaps never?"

"Oh no, it is not! I mean soon. Christmas, we'll say."

"Christmas!" He said nothing further till he added: "Well, I'll say
no more to you about it till that time."

Bathsheba was in a very peculiar state of mind, which showed how
entirely the soul is the slave of the body, the ethereal spirit
dependent for its quality upon the tangible flesh and blood. It is
hardly too much to say that she felt coerced by a force stronger than
her own will, not only into the act of promising upon this singularly
remote and vague matter, but into the emotion of fancying that she
ought to promise. When the weeks intervening between the night of
this conversation and Christmas day began perceptibly to diminish,
her anxiety and perplexity increased.

One day she was led by an accident into an oddly confidential
dialogue with Gabriel about her difficulty. It afforded her a little
relief--of a dull and cheerless kind. They were auditing accounts,
and something occurred in the course of their labours which led Oak
to say, speaking of Boldwood, "He'll never forget you, ma'am, never."

Then out came her trouble before she was aware; and she told him how
she had again got into the toils; what Boldwood had asked her, and
how he was expecting her assent. "The most mournful reason of all
for my agreeing to it," she said sadly, "and the true reason why I
th